It’s not your job to be beautiful

You did not choose your eye color, hip-to-waist ratio, the symmetry of your face, texture of your hair, or where you wrinkle when you smile. Your worth is not wrapped up in your physical appearance. You did nothing to “deserve” the way you look. It just is.

You were not put on this earth to be beautiful, no matter what billion-dollar industries might tell you about how you look and what you need in order to improve. What if there were nothing to improve beside what’s inside?
If you love fashion, make up, and taking care of your body, love them for how they make you feel, for the care and attention you’re able to give this one body you have that’s so wonderfully capable.

What would our lives look like if we took all the energy we spent on things that aren’t our job and focused on things that are?

What if we redirected our agony over what we can’t change (the fact that my eyes get really squinty when I smile genuinely) and put that energy towards loving ourselves more, or cultivating compassion for others?

What if we spent even 5% less time comparing ourselves to others who were given different phenotypes and put that toward forgiving ourselves for the shame we’ve doled out around things we didn’t earn?

Don’t buy into the notion that being beautiful is your job. It’s not. Living the life you want to live — loving the way you want to love — those are your jobs.

Take care of the things you can control, like your heart, mind, and body. Focus on what you can cultivate rather than wishing for things to be other than the way they are. And if you can cultivate a relationship with your body that’s full of gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, and love… well, that sounds like a beautiful life to me.

I’ve dedicated my life to exploring what it means to be human. If you’d like to go deeper with me, I send out emails exploring the messiness. http://www.lauratheexplora.org/laura-letter